


add cinnamon to taste

by thescrewtapedemos



Series: all that and a baking sheet too [1]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Baking, Humor, M/M, guest starring adam's deep and fervid desire to wife that up, inspired by exactly what you think it was inspired by
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 16:27:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17870705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescrewtapedemos/pseuds/thescrewtapedemos
Summary: “I'm coming over,” Adam says as soon as Brandon picks up the phone.Brandon is quiet for a second.“Okay?” he says at last. It's not the most inviting tone but Adam forgives him. “Uh, give me an hour or two-,”“You have,” Adam pushes open the door to the lobby of Brandon's building, “like, a minute. Maybe.”“Jesus fucking Christ,” Brandon says and hangs up.





	add cinnamon to taste

**Author's Note:**

> when i find myself in times of trouble the winnipeg jets come to me, speaking words of wisdom: adam lowry wants to kiss brandon tanev on the mouth. 
> 
> thank you to moliver for the beta and to brandon tanev’s mother for that bone structure. hello, cheekbones. 
> 
> enjoy xoxo

Losing a game sucks. 

Losing the season opener extra sucks. 

Losing the season opener on home ice to the fucking _Toronto Maple Leafs_ fucking _sucks_. Adam is trying to see a silver lining and kind of failing. It’s fucking Toronto. Fucking Bozak. If he mouths off again Adam’s gonna break his fist on that shiny new faceguard and fuck the rest of the season. 

“Calm your shit down,” Brandon says like an absolutely hypocrite. 

He’s sweaty and bright red and they’re two periods into getting absolutely routed. Adam doesn’t know how Brandon isn’t also losing his whole entire shit. Fucking Tyler motherfucking _Bozak_. Adam doesn’t want to think about it. 

“You have something on your face,” Adam tells him. He’s still kind of wheezy. Bozak had gone into him elbow first at the end of his last shift and he’s still feeling it. “Oh, wait, that’s your face.” 

Brandon rolls his eyes. Scheifele doesn’t lift his head from his knees but he does lift a limp hand for Adam to slap five even though Adam’s burn was objectively the weakest of weak shit. Scheifs is a fucking G. 

“Whatever, Lowry,” Brandon says just in time for Blake to get to his feet with an awe-inspiringly unnecessary level of pep. Adam hates him briefly. 

“Let’s go win a hockey game, boys!” he says and Adam attempts something that might, if no one really looks too closely, look like a fist pump of agreement. Down three-nil in the third isn't a great place to start, but who knows. Maybe they'll win a hockey game. 

They lose a hockey game.

-/-

“I don’t wanna fucking talk,” he warns as soon as Brandon’s opened his door.

Brandon squints at him. 

“Okay?” he says. “Fuck, what’s crawled up your ass.” 

“Gimme your emergency beer,” Adam continues, pushing past Brandon into the apartment. The couch is currently _très occupé_ by like, a metric fuckton of Brandon’s unwashed hockey gear and so he just lets himself topple gently onto the extremely suggested-by-a-professional-interior-designer jewel-tone shag carpet. 

It’s soft, at least. He rubs his cheek against it and tries not to think about who’s been walking on it. He’s too fucking old for this. Which, like, he is only twenty-four, but whatever. 

“You know, I didn't invite you over,” Brandon observes. Adam doesn't move. 

“Beer,” he prompts with his face in the shag. “I know you have it. Gimme.” 

Brandon doesn’t say anything for a long time and when Adam finally turns his head over to check that his beer is being delivered he discovers Brandon’s standing over him and looking down at him like he can’t decide whether Adam’s hilarious or tragic or both. He looks like an idiot from this angle. 

“Beer,” he repeats and Brandon snorts at him. 

“Buy your own pity beer,” he says and crouches down to scrub his knuckles briskly against Adam’s skull. Adam lets it happen because he is emotionally distraught and can't be bothered to prevent the world’s injustices. 

“I’m _sad_ ,” he tries. 

Brandon’s tan is still deep and warm and healthy from the off-season and he smells like locker room soap. He’s looking at Adam like he can’t decide if he wants to laugh at him out loud or just keep it inside. It quirks his mouth up and wrinkles his nose. 

“We’re all fucking sad, Lowsy,” he says after a beat and he’s definitely laughing at Adam, for sure. He ruffles Adam’s hair again and he’s _so_ fucking lucky Adam didn’t bother to do more than yank a hoodie over his head before he left his apartment to come here because Adam’s not above fighting dirty when it comes to a nice style. “You’re not special.” 

Adam works a hand up to shove at Brandon’s forehead until he rocks back on his heels and rolls up to his feet. 

“ _Beer_ ,” he whines.

-/-

The cookies are like- okay, the cookies are kind of weird. It’s a little weird. Even by hockey player standards, which are already pretty out there, the cookies are a little weird. But Adam is not going to judge because he is a modern, open-minded man about Brandon showing up with a tub of pecan shortbread cookies heavy with butter and chai spice and an expression that dares anyone to say anything.

No one says anything, because they are too busy performing bold experiments into how much cookie a hockey player’s mouth can truly contain. 

“Do you wanna marry me?” Adam asks seriously, slightly muffled. He’s double-fisting and has a third one in his mouth and he’s putting serious consideration into whether he can hide a fourth in his bag for later because there’s no way the tub is lasting long enough to go back for seconds. He’s pretty sure Hellebuyck is storing them in his cheeks, chipmunk-style. Brandon ignores him. 

“Damn,” Hendricks says with his mouth full, spraying crumbs literally everywhere. “You ever consider a career change, Rusty?” 

“Shut up,” Brandon grumbles but he looks pleased. “You're fucking disgusting.” 

“Marriage,” Adam swallows his mouthful of shortbread to repeat, fishing a fourth out of the tub because he can see the look in Roslovic’s eye and there won’t be any left in the next five minutes, let alone by the end of practice. “I’m so fucking serious, Tanev. Marry me right now.” 

Brandon rolls his eyes and slaps him on the shoulder which is not, Adam notes optimistically, a no.

-/-

They lose the second game. They’re barely into the season yet but it’s just-

Adam keeps his breathing tight and controlled. He’s not gonna be the guy that breaks a stick against the locker room wall. He’s like, _above_ that. Or something. 

He doesn’t need a Deadspin article about him a week into the regular season, at least. The media are circling the locker room the way he thinks a pack of lions probably observe a herd of hapless gazelle. There's blood in the water, which, he knows lions don’t live in the water but- whatever. Adam is not a biologist. 

He ducks his head and works on getting his skates unlaced. Blake and Scheifs are up for media so, like, silver linings. No one’s asking him about hockey. It’s probably the closest he’s gonna get to the best this night could go. 

Brandon’s waiting for him at his car, his mouth pinched into a thin, straight line. 

“I’m not in the mood, Tanev,” he sighs but lets Brandon punch him in the arm anyway. Brandon gets an arm around him and shakes him like he can knock their skid out of Adam by the power of pure Canadian bicep. It does, remarkably, make Adam feel a little better. 

“Don’t give a shit if you’re in the mood,” Brandon says and he sounds almost like the game isn't bothering him but Adam can hear the way his voice is a just little too flat. It’s painfully obvious in the way that, if he wanted to, Adam could probably hang a fucking picture by how perfectly level and tight his shoulders are. And like, fuck, Adam isn’t a total bastard most of the time. Unless Scheifele is involved. “Buy me a beer.”

“I’m not gonna buy you a beer,” Adam says. 

He is probably going to end up buying Brandon a beer. 

“Adam,” Brandon says. There’s a little bit of smirk tucked into the corner of his mouth and it’s kind of- nice, actually, even if it doesn’t reach his eyes. It’s nice not to see him looking so miserable. 

“No,” Adam says anyway because he gives up on being a shithead when they finally put him in the dirt. 

“You drank all my emergency beer, Lowsy,” Brandon counters. “You fucking owe me.” 

Which, fuck. He kind of had. 

“ _Fine_ ,” he sighs. “No disco nights.” 

“S’like you don’t even know how to have fun,” Brandon says like a total fucking asshole. Winnipeg’s mildly disturbing affinity for disco nights does not equate _fun_ , which Adam knows because he is the fun one of the two of them, but Brandon climbs into Adam’s passenger seat and throws on some Drake so he’s not mad or anything. 

“It’s just two games,” Brandon says when they’re finally seated in some absolute dive of a bar advertising a 90’s hip-hop night neither of them will really enjoy and three-dollar pitchers they both _really_ will. 

“Wow,” Adam says and gets up and heads to the bar. 

The bartender is short and built like a really small truck, muscle for show instead of function. Adam flirts for a little while and doesn’t really mind too much when he’s turned down with a wink. He’s not picking up anyway, so it’s not like it matters one way or the other. 

Brandon doesn’t follow him but Adam feels the eyes on the back of his neck anyway. He grins at the bartender and stays just a little longer just to be a shithead. 

“Sorry,” Brandon says when Adam comes back with the pitcher and two pint glasses, reasonably clean. He sounds it, too. Stupid earnest eyebrows. Adam hadn’t been all that mad to begin with but he can’t really keep it up in the face of that anyway. 

“S’fine,” he says. It’s not but, y’know, whatever. It’s not Brandon’s fault. He pours himself a glass and drains it while Brandon’s still pouring his own. 

“Slow down, cowboy,” Brandon says and raps his knuckles on the table by Adam’s elbow. 

“Make me,” Adam counters and pours himself the next one.

-/-

Brandon’s mouth-breathing obnoxiously in his ear the whole cab ride back to his apartment. It’s hot and wet and smells like the kind of beer that comes in three-dollar pitchers. He’s mostly asleep. His eyes are narrowed to teeny-tiny glittering slits when Adam glances down at him and he keeps picking at the seat like he thinks he’s gonna find anything but a staph infection in the lining.

Adam doesn’t say anything. He just fixes his eyes on the way the numbers on the cab’s radio keep shifting around and tries to keep himself awake until they pull up at Brandon’s apartment building. 

“S’get you to bed,” he slurs to Brandon and shoves him until he gets his feet mostly under him. Adam has to leave him to lean against the side of the can while he fishes his own wallet out of his pocket to pay the cab driver. It’s fucking unfair. 

Brandon proceeds to be incredibly unhelpful, imitating a dead body against Adam’s shoulder as he drags him up the steps and to the elevator. At least he stays blessedly mostly upright when Adam gets him propped up against the railing in the corner and sets about trying to press the right button. It’s turning out to be kind of tricky. 

“I’m gonna leave you in the elevator,” he threatens when he finally gets the right button. He also hit the floor above theirs, but he awards himself points for effort. 

“The fuck you _will_ ,” Brandon replies without opening his eyes. 

His words are remarkably clear for how Adam could have sworn a moment ago he was actually clinically in a coma. Adam pats vaguely at where his shoulder would be if he could get the world to stand still and Brandon’s silhouette to stop doubling unexpectedly. He hopes he gets the pocket Brandon keeps his keys in right the first time. 

He gets Brandon to bed with a bottle of water and spends a contemplative few moments chugging his own water, standing over where Brandon’s already drooling into his pillows and wondering if he should try to get Brandon’s shoes off. 

Brandon squirms a little bit. He’s gotten an arm around a pillow, cradled to his chest. The way he’s curled up in the sheets makes him look smaller than Adam knows he is. 

Fuck it, he decides, and just clumsily pulls the throw over all of it. Brandon can do his laundry if he cares about getting his shoes on the sheets. 

“You owe me cab fare,” he says. Brandon snores at him. He stumbles out of the room to go crash on the couch.

-/-

“Someone’s hungover,” Scheifs coos at him when he drags himself into practice the next morning. The glare of fluorescent lights off cinderblock is a unique and familiar hell. “You smell like Pabst.”

Home is where your friends all know you have a hangover, Adam philosophizes with grim humor, letting his aching head fall forward to rest against the shelf of his stall for just a second. Also, fuck Scheifele. As if he hasn’t ever crawled in the door smelling like he’d made best friends with a bottle of Tito’s the night before. 

“S’probably all the Pabst I rolled in last night,” he says instead of ragging on Scheifs for any of the hundreds of times he’s made an embarrassment of himself. Because he is an absolute saint, honestly. 

“Sounds like you had fun,” Scheifs says. He’s leaning against the tape shelves and grinning at Adam like a demon, Adam discovers when he rocks back on his heels so he can shove his greasy hair back off his forehead. His eyes feel like they’ve got sand in them. Someone’s using a jackhammer directly on his brain.

“Fun is a _strong_ word,” he says. 

“You’re a fucking degenerate,” Scheifs says, showing off that his girlfriend got him a word of the day calendar for his birthday. Adam is neither fooled nor impressed. He’s met Scheifs’ girlfriend and she redefines the concept of ‘better half’. 

“My mom tells me I’m a good boy,” he says. 

“Your mom lied to you,” Scheifs says. Adam punches him in the arm for talking about his mom and sets himself to the task of getting his pads on. Maurice isn’t in yet but he’s like a heat-seeking missile for bag-skating hungover hockey players and Adam likes their ice crew too much to wanna make them scrape his puke up off the ice. 

“We're getting lunch,” Scheifs says just before Tanev finally hobbles in the door. He doesn't look like he's showered since Adam had snuck out to get back to his own apartment three hours ago. His gaze finds Adam across the crowded locker room and his expression is… not promising. 

“Adam motherfucking _Lowry_ ,” he says. He doesn’t look happy. Adam decides it will probably not be particularly helpful to remind Brandon that the bar has been _his_ idea. 

“Hey, Rusty,” he says, and tries a smile.

-/-

They win the next game and Adam heaves a quiet sigh of relief into his gloves and then recoils and promises himself he’s gonna find some way to stop his mitts from stinking so fucking bad. Jesus motherfucking _Christ_.

-/-

“I'm coming over,” Adam says as soon as Brandon picks up the phone.

Brandon is quiet for a second. 

“Okay?” he says at last. It's not the most inviting tone but Adam forgives him. “Uh, give me an hour or two-,” 

“You have,” Adam pushes open the door to the lobby of Brandon's building, “like, a minute. Maybe.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Brandon says and hangs up. 

“I brought replacement beer,” Adam says as soon as Brandon opens his door and hefts the sixer into view. Brandon glares at him, and then down at the beer, and then back at him. Adam does his best to look innocent and likeable. 

“You’re an asshole,” Brandon says sourly but he pushes the door open wider anyway. 

“Word,” Adam says cheerfully, instead of what he wants to say, which is _you are what you eat._ He’s really growing as a person this year. 

Brandon’s apartment smells really good. 

It smells like… some kind of decorative candle, maybe. Warm and sweet and kind of like vanilla, or maybe like cake of some kind. Adam frowns. Brandon isn’t the decorative candle type, unless he maybe has company over he’s trying to impress. 

He really hopes Brandon doesn’t have company over he’s trying to impress. He’s pretty good with moms usually but if it’s some kind of lady friend or whatever… 

“Your apartment smells good,” he says. 

“Uh, thanks,” Brandon says, pausing in the doorway to the living room to look back at him. 

“Why does your apartment smell good?” Adam demands, because when it comes to angry teammate girlfriends forewarned is forearmed or whatever it is they say on Gladiator, and then he turns around and gets a really good long look at Brandon’s face for the first time. 

There’s a streak of fine white powder from Brandon’s nose all the way across his cheekbone. It shows up beautifully against his tan. Adam blinks at it for a long, long moment while Brandon stares back at him with an expression equal parts annoyed and mildly concerned. 

There is, he realizes with distant inanity, Cartoon Network playing on the TV. It’s the only sound in the whole apartment. 

“You know that’s gonna show up on your next piss test, right?” Adam asks finally. He’s never really pegged Brandon as the like, casual cocaine bro but he supposes you never really knew. Brandon is plenty uptight enough. And twitchy. 

“What?” Brandon asks blankly and reaches up to touch his cheek when Adam points at the streak of white powder. He blinks at it for a second and bursts out laughing. Which is like… okay? 

“That’s _flour_ , you dumbass,” he manages when he’s finally stopped laughing, the asshole. “Don’t you know what fucking _flour_ looks like?” 

“You’re baking,” Adam realizes, too busy realigning his brain to this new reality to really get offended. And like, he’d obviously known Brandon made cookies. He’d eaten a truly inadvisable number of them. He just somehow hadn’t put together Brandon scowling at him over a tub of pecan shortbread with… this. A warm apartment smelling like vanilla and sugar and chocolate, flour streaked on his cheek. 

This will most likely have terrible implications for his sanity. He forces himself not to think about it too closely. 

“Well,” Brandon says and shoves his hands in his pockets, flour and all. It puts his shoulders up stiffly. He looks really defensive, suddenly. Adam misses the laughter. “It’s, y’know, game tomorrow.” 

“A game?” Adam asks. He’s sure there’s a thread of logic in there somewhere but he’s just not seeing it. Brandon makes a face at him. His shoulders are up so high they’re practically brushing his ears. 

“Baking makes me feel, y'know,” he says and pulls a hand free to wobble vaguely in the air. 

“You stress-bake,” he fills in kindly when it becomes obvious Brandon's just gonna stare at him tragically until the end of time otherwise. He really admires how effectively Brandon manages to make his expression communicate how every word is being tortured out of him. He also manages, only barely but still, to avoid comparing Brandon to his mom. 

“Yeah,” Brandon says. “Guess so.”

“We all have our, like, thing,” Adam says, magnanimous. He doesn't get to feel like this often. Like someone's looking to him for answers or advice or validation or whatever. Which is weird, because he has lots of advice and all of the answers. Maybe he needs to take charge of a rookie or something. 

“Cookies,” Brandon says and rolls his eyes, a self-disparaging expression that Adam is not fond of. Cookies are pretty fucking dope and by extension so is baking. 

“Yeah, dude,” he says. It makes sense to him. He might kind of get why Brandon’s being so uptight but, like, it’s just Adam. It’s not like Adam’s gonna judge. “You bake. I punch people on the ice. S'the, uh, circle of life.” 

“I punch people too,” Brandon says, because of course that's the part of what Adam said that's important and relevant. He sounds defensive. 

“You try,” Adam grants. “Kind of,” he amends after a moment’s thought.

“Fuck off,” Brandon says, but he sounds pleased. 

“No,” Adam says. “Gimme some cookies, then.”

-/-

“I want a rookie,” he says to Scheifs later, at the next practice.

“Like _fuck_ ,” Scheifs says immediately. Adam gapes at him, mortally wounded. He knew this league was cutthroat and completely without honor but, like, _bro_. 

“And why the fuck not?” he demands. “I could be great with a rookie. Kids love me.” 

“Kids love you because you are a fucking child,” Scheifs says. “No rookie for you. You still live in an apartment.” 

“I have a guest bed,” Adam argues. His guest bed sort of qualifies as a de facto walk-in closet for hockey gear and promo hoodies but he can buy garbage bags and walk his unused shit down to Goodwill just like a normal person. There’s- maybe not plenty, but _sufficient_ room for another human in his apartment. “I can totally be responsible for a rookie.” 

“Wheels,” Scheifs calls across the locker room to Blake, who pops up like a particularly eager and muscular gopher. “Lowsy wants a rookie.” 

“He can have Ehlers,” Blake says and disappears back into the scrum of trainers that Adam wants nothing at all to do with. 

“Fuck no,” Ehlers call back from the other side of the locker room. Adam scowls, put out. He gets no fucking respect in this locker room. 

“Boom,” Brandon deadpans from at his shoulder. Adam manages not to jump a full three feet in the air because it would probably detract from his credibility, but it’s a near thing. Brandon can apparently move very quietly when he wants to and Adam’s not paying attention. “Roasted.” 

“Fuck off,” Adam says and scowls some more. No fucking respect. 

“Maybe next season,” Scheifs grants kindly. He’s grinning like a shithead. The joke, however, is on him. Adam is going to remember this and hold him to it next season.

-/-

“I can measure shit,” he grumbles.

“Like,” Scheifs says and then doesn’t say another word. He’s looking at Adam uncomfortably and with a touch of confusion. They’re sitting on the couch watching the Bachelor because Adam is upset and watching other people be even more upset and stupid than he could ever be usually soothes him. 

It’s not working. 

“I _can_ ,” Adam mutters and buries his chin deeper in the pillow he’s clutching to his chest. “It’s not, like, outside of my capabilities. I can measure things if I wanna.” 

“Yeah,” Scheifs says after a beat. He looks kind of lost. Adam ignores him. 

“If Brandon doesn’t want my help that’s fucking fine,” Adam continues. “It’s fucking whatever! He can make his cookies all on his fucking own if he’s too good for my help.” 

“Oh my god,” Scheifs says. Adam continues to ignore him. 

“It’s fucking ridiculous,” he mumbles. “I literally just wanted to measure the flour. The fucking _flour_.” 

“Um,” Scheifs says diplomatically. Adam lifts his head enough to glare. “Have you tried, ahh… telling him you want to help? Instead of just trying to, uh… measure things?” 

Adam digests that for a little while. Onscreen, a woman is in loud hysterics. It provides a pretty great soundtrack. 

“You think that’d work?” he asks at last. 

“Oh, my fucking god,” Scheifs says and puts his face in his hands.

-/-

“Marriage,” he says stupidly when Brandon opens his apartment door and the smell of melting chocolate and cinnamon spills out past him. “Seriously.”

Brandon observes him for a beat and then snorts and turns on his heel, stalking back towards the kitchen. He doesn’t shut the door in Adam’s face, though, so Adam toes his shoes off and closes the door conscientiously behind him. 

He’s washing out a mixing bowl, Adam sees when he turns the corner. There’s still flour and chocolate and measuring cups spread out all over the counter. 

“I wanted to lick the bowl,” he says sadly. 

“I should never have told you where I live,” Brandon says instead of answering. “I’m gonna move and block your number. Stop showing up at my fucking apartment.” 

“Shut the fuck up. You’d miss me,” Adam says confidently. Brandon throws him a narrow look over his shoulder. 

He’s wearing an apron and sweatpants and a shirt so old it’s got holes all along the hem. The apron’s sensible and olive green and objectively the platonic ideal of boring aprons, but he’s knotted it in a bow behind him and there’s flour in his hair. Adam tries to school his face into a pout. 

Brandon sighs through his nose and gestures with his chin towards the stove where there is, Adam discovers delightedly, a spoon coated in cookie dough. 

“I hope you die of salmonella,” Brandon mutters. 

“Hurtful,” Adam says idly. The cookie dough is fucking _delicious_ , warm and less sweet than he would have expected. There's even chocolate chips in it still. He hops up on the clearest part of the counter and settles in to watch Brandon putter around the kitchen. 

“You’re sure you don’t wanna get married?” he asks after a second. “You do dishes and shit. This is pretty dope.”

Brandon pauses over the sink and looks back over his shoulder. Both eyebrows are up in an expression Adam can’t really quite parse but it doesn’t look so bad. 

“I don’t get anything out of it,” he says at last and turns back to the sink of mixing bowls and measuring cups. “Sweeten the deal.” 

Adam keeps his mouth shut because he can’t think of a single safe way to respond to that and it’s much safer just to lick cookie dough off the spoon and pretend he isn’t watching the way Brandon sways back and forth as he does the dishes. He knows the kitchen by heart and it shows in how instinctively he moves around it. It’s nice to watch. 

He finishes and whirls to look at Adam and Adam looks down at the spoon in his hands so he isn’t caught staring at Brandon’s ass. 

Brandon just looks at him for a second. 

“Wanna watch some Food Network?” he asks at last. 

“Fuck, hell yes,” Adam says immediately and tosses his spoon in the sink.

-/-

“Shouldn't you be playing video games with Laine or whatever?” Brandon asks. They’ve been watching for like an hour and he’s sprawled out comfortably, as relaxed as he ever gets. There’s still flour in his hair and a streak of it down his temple. “S'gotta be more fun than watching Food Network with me.”

“Listen, dude, I like Fortnite as much as anyone but, bro… I don't know if I can keep up with Patty,” Adam says. “Maybe I enjoy watching dumb cake shows.” 

Brandon considers him for a moment. Adam does his best to look like a good baking show watching partner. 

“That’s fucked up,” he says at last. “What’s wrong with you?” 

“Rich, coming from you,” Adam says. He isn’t fooled. Brandon looks pleased, chin down against his chest, something that’s threatening to be a smile tucked away in the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. He doesn’t even shove Adam away when he gets his feet up on the couch and shoves his cold toes under him. He just bats at his legs once and settles in to watch some amateur bakers fuck up some cupcakes.

-/-

Adam rolls into the club riding the highest he’s felt since his debut, maybe.

It’s a good fucking season. It’s gonna be a great fucking season, maybe. Maybe even the best fucking season. Adam can smell it like stale beer in the air. There’s a table full of his teammates waiting for him and if he were riding any higher it’d show up on a piss test. 

Brandon even grins at him, without Adam having to drag it out of him or anything. It’s a special night. 

“Do I have a drink?” Adam demands and leans his hips against the table. “No one got me a drink? You guys are the fucking worst.” 

“Free drinks are for hatties,” Wheels counters. He’s grinning and he has a beer in each hand because he’s a hoarder. “Get us a hatty and I’ll get you like, three beers.” 

“Done,” Adam says, even though there’s basically no way he’s gonna get a hatty. He knows his limits, but he also knows a deal when he hears one. “Someone come do shots with me. Brandon, do shots with me, Scheifs is trying to dance.” 

“I don’t wanna do shots,” Brandon says but he’s already getting to his feet and he looks amused. He’s a liar anyway, he’s always up for shots. 

Adam throws his arm around his shoulders as they start wading through the crowd around the bar. Brandon lets him do it and doesn’t even fight back, just lets Adam tuck him into his side and shake him a little bit. 

“Jesus,” Brandon complains around the smile it doesn’t look like he can drag down off his mouth, “is this the fuckin’ Black Eyed Peas? Did we go through a time warp or some shit?” 

“Throwback night!” Adam shouts in his ear over the music. From here he can see Scheifs getting down with his bad self on the dance floor and Trouba posted up at the bar up ahead trying his luck with whatever comes in striking distance. 

Adam is pretty sure he’s going to have to come back to earth eventually but just this moment, just right now Brandon’s letting him get his arm around his shoulders and they’re barely pissing distance out of the preseason but… Adam scored a goal. A goal _and_ an assist, and no losing record. Not this year. 

_Tonight’s gonna be a good night_ , will.i.am croons overhead which is just ludicrous enough to make Adam laugh. 

“No disco nights but the fuckin’ Black Eyed Peas gets a pass?” Brandon asks, finally giving up and grinning at him. He’s got the lingering traces of a black eye and terrible hair and he smells like locker room soap. He’s flushed and his smile looks like it doesn’t know what it’s doing on his face. He fits under Adam’s arm. 

Adam lets himself want him, just for a moment. 

_A feeling_ , will.i.am keeps singing and Adam laughs some more and steps away because he knows how to quit when he’s ahead. It’s a fucking party. _Tonight’s gonna be a good, good night._

“Disco blows. I owe you a drink,” Adam says, even though he doesn’t, and goes to get them their shots.

-/-

“Have you ever tried making macaroons?” Adam asks idly. He’s tabbing through a cookie recipe website while Brandon gets out shit to make chocolate chip cookies. They have a game versus San Jose tomorrow and for some reason Brandon had muttered, “Fucking Thornton,” when Adam had brought it up and gone right for the chocolate chips.

“ _Macaroons_ ,” Brandon snarls and slams the utensil drawer shut with a rattle, whirling and stalking away to disappear into the pantry instead. 

“...What’s wrong with macaroons?” Adam asks the empty kitchen, bewildered.

-/-

Brandon doesn’t look like a man that’s just scored a hat trick only three hours ago.

He looks kind of shell-shocked, actually. Like his hatty must have happened to someone else. Like he can’t quite believe that Morrissey is hanging off his neck like he doesn’t outweigh him by twenty pounds, like he’s not sure why everyone keeps pounding him on the back. Like he’s not sure he belongs in this bar overrun by professional hockey players and he’s a little nervous to move in case it breaks the spell. 

Adam gets him by the cheeks before he can really think about it or remember why it’s a really, _really_ bad idea. He has to elbow Morrissey out of the way to do it but, like, whatever. The guy scores like twenty goals a season, he can take a couple hits. 

Brandon stares at him. 

“You got a hatty,” Adam tells him earnestly, because someone probably should. 

Brandon blinks up at him. Adam squeezes his cheeks so he looks kind of like a fish. 

“It’s a party ‘cuz you scored a hatty,” Adam clarifies. Brandon’s doing a terrible job of being a fish, he thinks kind of dizzily. He doesn’t really look like he’s breathing. 

“You’re a shitty fish,” he tells Brandon, and gets punched in the gut, which he thinks might be kind of an overreaction. 

“I got a fucking _hatty_ ,” Brandon says, and he sounds like it’s only just now occurring to him. Adam is unbearably fond of his stupid ass even though Brandon just punched him in the gut. He’s probably never been fonder in his life on account of Brandon just can’t fucking punch. He gets a hand back on Brandon’s face and mostly centered kind of on his cheek, more out of luck than he would admit out loud. 

A thumb gets perilously close to going up Brandon’s nose before it takes the dive towards his eye socket but he doesn’t actually poke Brandon in the eye so, whatever 

“I’m proud of you,” he says earnestly, and then he realizes his beer is spilling all over the fucking table because he’d forgotten to keep track of his elbows in the scrum and also his whole crotch is now soaked in Miller Lite.

-/-

Brandon does not, as a rule, invite him over. Their friendship is more of the ‘Adam showing up uninvited and making himself at home while Brandon bitches at him unconvincingly’ variety. So when Brandon texts him to come over Adam’s already got his shoes tied.

“Good,” Brandon says when he opens the door. Adam blinks at him. Brandon’s not, like, _smiling_ or anything so it isn’t the end of the world. “I made something I want you to try.” 

“Is it poisoned?” Adam asks seriously, but he toes his shoes off anyway. Brandon’s apartment smells warm and a little earthy and sweet with chocolate. His stomach grumbles right on cue. 

It’s possible the whole situation is getting a little Pavlovian. 

“Don’t be a moron,” Brandon says without turning around. “I’ve never made anything with pumpkin before. If I fucked it up I didn’t wanna give it out to the whole team.” 

There’s a tray of muffins on the counter. Cute, still-steaming pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. Brandon’s staring down at them with his arms crossed over his chest so his shoulders look unfairly nice, his eyes narrowed like he’s dissatisfied even though the muffins look like something out of a magazine. He’s wearing the fucking apron again. 

Adam has a tiny little bit of a boner. He shifts one leg kind of up to hide it. It’s definitely Pavlovian. 

“They look pretty fucking good, bro,” he says. He sounds pretty normal, he hopes.

“Hmm,” is all Brandon says but he doesn’t really look at Adam or even seem to notice Adam trying to think unsexy thoughts. He’s too busy carefully easing one perfect muffin free and handing it across the Adam. Adam can already tell the chocolate chips are in the perfect state of not-quite melty. 

Adam unceremoniously eats half of it in one bite. Brandon makes a face at him. Adam promptly stops being able to pay attention to him as he registers just how fucking good the muffin is. Which is very, he wants stated for the record. Incredibly, deeply, unspeakably good. His boner is… not flagging. 

“God,” he says and jams another bite of muffin in his mouth. “ _God._ ” 

Brandon stares at him for a moment. His eyes are very wide and his expression is something Adam really can’t read until he shakes himself. 

“You’re supposed to eat it,” he says, much less angrily than Adam would have expected. “Not _fuck_ it. It’s a _muffin_.” 

“Marry me,” Adam demands and weighs the last bit of muffin in his hand. On the one hand, he wants to say fuck the diet plan and his ability to get through a full workout in an hour and cram this in his mouth and follow it with another two. On the other, something like this deserves to be savored. “Deadass. Marry me right the fuck now.” 

“ _Deadass_ ,” Brandon mocks him. He looks kind of pleased. At least, he looks kind of pink around the edges and he’s looking down at one of the perfect little muffins, picking at it with a fingernail. “You ask all the guys making you muffins to marry you.” 

“I’m so serious,” Adam promises and like, obviously he’s lying. Even if they were- even if they _were_... marriage would be a massive fucking step. And they aren’t, so it isn’t even on the table anyway. But something warm and squirmy and a little bit achy still clenches in his chest anyway. He ignores it. “It’s legal in Canada. Your cookies are worth it, bro.” 

Brandon doesn’t reply right away. He doesn’t look up from his muffin either. The silence lasts just a beat too long and Adam shoves the last bite of muffin in his mouth to avoid saying anything stupid to fill it. Stupider. He’s already been plenty stupid. 

“Shut up,” Brandon says, just long enough gone for it to be kind of horrible. But he’s smiling when he looks up. Half a smile, just a little bit rueful. “You’d never put out. S’watch some Kitchen Nightmares or something.” 

Adam manages, just barely, not to say anything else. He’s somehow, _miraculously_ avoided propositioning any of his teammates so far and he’s already embarrassed himself today. He’s gonna quit while he’s ahead.

-/-

Mark’s got their table all staked out by the time Adam saunters in. He’s late as fuck but Scheifs just grins at him when he walks in. It’s the end of regular season and they have a clean Cup run ahead of them. Scheifs has a stack of pancakes with bacon and eggs in front of him already.

It is, Adam reflects, a good day to be Adam Lowry. 

“What’s up, playoffs hero?” Adam says and throws himself into the booth so it rattles the silverware on the table. Scheifs grins at him. He’s pink. His beard and mustache situation probably qualifies for protection under a National Parks act of some kind, as territory supporting native wildlife. It’s a little out of hand, is what Adam’s saying. 

He rubs his own beard. He can’t stop grinning. 

“Winnipeg Jets in the fuckin’ playoffs, baby,” Scheifs says back. His grin is just as big. “Got you an omelet, figured your wife was making you enough baked goods. Should be here in a minute.” 

“I’m the wife,” Adam argues without any real heat. “You know how to treat me right, Scheifs. Jesus.” 

The waitress sets a mug of coffee in front of him and retreats at speed. It’s possible he and Scheifs just grinning at each other like fools in their slightly ratty street clothes and playoffs beards do not paint an appealing picture. It’s hard to be bothered. 

“Gonna bring honor and glory and shit to the great city of Winnipeg,” Scheifs says with his mouth full of omelet, gesturing with a piece of mildly wilted bacon. “Stanley cup champions Mark Scheifele and Adam Lowry. Sounds fucking good, eh?” 

Adam snorts at him. 

“You’re gonna jinx us,” he says and sips his extremely mediocre coffee. There’s a piece of bacon on Scheifs’ plate he’s pretty sure he can sneak off if he’s careful. 

“Honor and glory, my man,” Scheifs says genially and stuffs the rest of the bacon in his hand into his mouth. “Honor and fucking glory,” he repeats with his mouth full. 

“You’ll bring honor to us all,” Adam sings under his breath, kind-of sort-of maybe a little off-key. Scheifs chokes on his bacon. Adam reaches across and snags the last strip while Scheifs is thumping himself on the chest and coughing frantically. 

“I can get you traded,” he threatens hoarsely. He’s bright red and looking a little sweaty at the temples and the waitress across the diner is eyeing them dubiously. So are half the patrons in the diner. Adam smiles at them all disarmingly until they turn back to their food. 

“No you won’t, no one else will get pedis with you,” he says cheerfully and takes a bite of the bacon. “You’re embarrassing me, stop it.”

-/-

They drop the series against Vegas. They don’t get blown out. That’s about all he can say about it.

He keeps remembering the way the stupid jewel-tone carpet in Brandon’s apartment had smelled. Half a year ago. Dusty and sour like long-term storage. He keeps his eyes on his hands putting his gear away for the last time this season. 

He hugs Brandon goodbye in the locker room when no one’s looking. No one looks at the loser fourth-liners. No one cares what he’s doing right now. He can tuck his nose against Brandon’s temple and breathe in for a scant handful of seconds and- 

And, whatever. 

“See you next season,” he says when he’s convinced his sluggish hands to let go. Brandon looks at him for a second, like maybe he has something to say, but he doesn’t say anything and Adam shoulders his bag and walks out of the locker room.

-/-

His mom takes one look at him as soon as he walks in the door and narrows her eyes and rolls up her sleeves and Adam feels better than he has in a week.

She gets him a beer while she’s rolling out the dough and dusting it in flour. He turns it between his palms without opening it. He’s not really in the mood. It’s kind of nice just to sit in the sunny yellow kitchen and watch his mom roll out gingerbread cookies. The air is warm and spicy and Winnipeg feels like a long way away. 

He’s expecting her to say something about the season but she doesn’t. She just hands him a cookie cutter. 

“Your hands work, don’t they?” she says when he just stares at it for a second. “And I need you to mow the lawn when you’re done. Dad won’t be home until the light’s gone.” 

He laughs for the first time in what feels like a month and goes to start cutting out little dinosaurs, because his mom is fucking _weird_. 

He sends a snap of them to Brandon later, when they’re cooling on the rack and he’s already burned his fingers and his mouth trying to eat them fresh out of the oven. 

_better than yours_ , he captions it. Brandon opens it right away but he doesn’t reply for long enough Adam’s screen goes dark and he leaves his phone in the kitchen to go mow the lawn before his mom sighs at him too loudly. 

When he comes back later he’s got a reply. A grainy, off-center, out of focus snap of half Brandon’s face. He’s in some kind of bar, there’s strips of pink neon light behind him. He’s not smiling but he’s just about to, Adam can tell. His eyelashes are so dark. 

_never_ , it says. Adam looks at it until the timer runs out and his screen goes dark again.

-/-

Brandon walks into camp and Adam doesn’t go up to him right away because he is emotionally mature enough to know he’ll say some extremely dumb shit. Because his tongue feels stupid and slow in his mouth and he’s can tell from the heat in his cheeks that he’s bright red.

The offseason treated Brandon pretty good, maybe. Filled out all the weight he was missing when Adam hugged him goodbye at the end of their fucking disaster Vegas series. The dark circles under his eyes have lightened. He’s looking flushed and tan and he’s grinning more naturally than Adam’s used to, like the season hasn’t piled any weight on yet. It makes Adam’s brain feel like a big ball of damp pocket lint. 

He’s somehow contracted some kind of disease that makes him even more of an idiot than usual, Adam decides silently. Maybe from Roslovic. Almost definitely from Roslovic. 

He’s gonna have to get over it though. And he’s never been one to fuck around about ripping off band aids. 

“Brandon motherfucking _Tanev_ ,” he crows as soon as he’s confident he’s not going to swallow his own tongue if he tries to breathe and think at the same time. Brandon turns a little just in time to kind of catch him, staggering a little as Adam throws his whole weight forward. He lets Adam pound him on the back and he’s still grinning when Adam pulls back to look at him. 

Adam is out of practice with this, maybe. 

“You look good,” Adam says and his voice is _not_ hoarse. 

“I look fucking great,” Brandon corrects. He’s _still_ smiling. Adam should probably stop staring. He should also probably stop gripping Brandon’s shoulders like that. 

“What is this?” he demands instead, “You smile now? What the fuck?” and knuckles at Brandon’s cheek instead of stepping away because he’s apparently lost his mind, what with the dumbass disease he’s caught off Roslovic. Brandon’s face is a little rough with stubble and instead of punching Adam in the gut like he probably deserves he just rolls his eyes and shoves him away. 

“I _smile_ ,” he snaps and he’s still smirking a little bit, tucked away in the corners of his mouth. 

“Oh, yeah?” Adam asks, interested. “When?” 

Brandon shoves him again. He’s still smirking. 

“Not around you, obviously,” he says and walks away and Adam finally manages to take a breath. 

So, like, that went well.

-/-

Adam reflects, shoving Brandon over even further in the backseat of the cab, that this is probably getting kind of out of hand.

It’s habit now to leave when Brandon does and share a cab back to Brandon’s, because it’s cheaper and easier when one of them is too drunk to operate a doorknob and key properly. It’s almost not worth thinking about at all. Brandon always has breakfast cookies anyway, and his coffee machine is nicer. 

A set of blankets and a nice pillow has mysteriously appeared in the hall closet, up high where it’s probably kind of inconvenient for Brandon to reach what with being so short. It’s perfect for Adam to reach though and he doesn’t ask about why it’s there or even bring it up after Brandon pointed it out to him grumpily the first time. He doesn’t wanna jinx it. 

“Can you _stop_ following me home,” Branon grumbles but he’s leaning on Adam’s shoulder already. He’s a sleepy drunk and Adam would lay money he’s going to be down for the count by the time they get across town. 

“Who else is gonna drag your ass up to your apartment?” Adam asks and tries not to sound so stupidly fond. Luckily, he probably just sounds stupidly drunk. 

“I can take care of myself,” Brandon mumbles, and his eyes are already closed. 

“Sure you can, chief,” Adam says. Brandon doesn’t respond, because he’s fallen asleep before they’ve even turned into the next street. Adam makes eye contact with the cab driver in the rearview mirror and grins winningly.

-/-

Scheifs calls him at the asscrack of dawn on a day with a light morning practice. Adam answers with his face buried in the pillows. It’s always possible Scheifs is dying or, like, actually literally on fire. Adam cares about his friends.

“Wha,” he says. He’s not sure it comes out as anything but a vaguely inquiring noise. He’s not really awake. 

“Help me clean out my guest room after practice,” Scheifs says. 

“No,” Adam says and hangs up. 

He has time to roll over and pull the blankets over his head before his phone is going off again. He thinks very seriously about just turning off the ringer and then groans and throws the blanket off again. Scheifs might have a reason for needing his help. Maybe. And he’s already awake, anyway. 

“I’m not cleaning your apartment for free,” he answers with before Scheifs can get a word in. “Fuckin’ pay me.” 

“Lowsy,” Scheifs says and Adam finally registers his tone. Panicked, and breathless. “Man, c’mon. I need your help.” 

“What the fuck?” he demands, sitting up. 

“I’m gonna propose to my girlfriend,” Scheifs says. Adam drops his phone.

-/-

“I still don’t really get what you proposing to your girlfriend has to do with me cleaning your apartment for you,” Adam says.

“With me,” Scheifs corrects from the other side of the huge pile of slightly mangled practice gear that’d been hiding in the guest room closet. Adam really doesn’t know why Scheifs has all this shit saved but they’re going through it together, throwing everything too damaged to use into the trash pile. The trash pile is pretty fucking big. 

“Whatever,” Adam says. “I still wanna get paid.” 

“I don’t think we’re gonna get to the wedding right away,” Scheifs says, ignoring him like he thinks Adam won’t be billing him for his hours at the end of this. “I want her to move in first, y’know? If she, uh, says yes.” 

He’s looking a little green. Adam sighs and throws a piece of broken stick at him. Scheifs has been edging around a panic attack all afternoon and Adam’s been talking him down over and over again through the careful application of physical violence. Scheifs throws a puck back at him, looking a little less pallid. 

“She’s gonna say yes,” he reassures, _again_. “God knows why. So you’re cleaning the place out so she doesn’t know the garbage dump you live in?” 

“Bro, she can _never know_ ,” Scheifs says and he’s right back to looking kind of green. “Oh, god.” 

Adam knuckles at his eye sockets until the threat of a migraine abates a little. 

“I’m calling Brandon,” he says. “He’ll bring over some cookies or something. Jesus Christ, dude.” 

“Okay,” Scheifs says faintly. He’s staring into space. Adam throws another puck at him.

-/-

“Scheifs is getting married,” Adam says.

“Probably,” Brandon says. “S’what usually happens when people get engaged. Unless they really fuck it up.” 

“They won’t,” Adam says and sprawls out even more. 

They’re kind of watching Kitchen Nightmares, though Adam’s more drowsy than anything. It’s the U.K. version because Brandon’s some kind of freak that enjoys a more kind-hearted Ramsay explaining how to fix things more than a pissed-off Ramsay screaming and calling people idiot sandwiches. The things Adam does for him. 

He’s sleepy and full. Chinese takeout for once instead of baked goods, which he’s not sure the trainers are gonna like any better, but whatever. There was green shit in it. Leaves and broccoli. He’s being healthy. 

“What kinda cookies do you like?” Brandon asks. 

Adam thinks about that, watching Ramsay tear into a chef about the state of their walk-in freezer. It takes a while. It takes long enough for Brandon to elbow him, hard. He has sharp elbows and Adam elbows him back because _ow_ , what the fuck?

“Ones I can eat, I guess,” he says at last, thoughtful, when Brandon’s been subdued. “Dunno man, I’m simple, I’ll eat whatever. Snickerdoodles, maybe?” 

“Get the fuck off me,” Brandon says, muffled by how Adam’s got him in a reverse headlock. He’s face-first in the couch cushions, one arm trapped under him and the other firmly caught by Adam. The lamp on the table next to the couch shudders ominously as Brandon kicks out, but disappointingly doesn’t fall over. 

Adam lets him up because his struggles were starting to get a little weak and he doesn’t want to like, actually murder him. 

“You’re such a dick,” Brandon says, sitting up and tugging his hoodie straight. He’s dull crimson and looks really sulky. It’s kind of cute. 

“Don’t throw ‘bows, dude,” Adam says comfortably and laces his fingers over his stomach. “That’s kindergarten shit.” 

“I’ll show you fucking _kindergarten shit,_ ” Brandon says immediately. 

The lamp does not survive.

-/-

“Adam, get your wife to make more muffins,” Blake asks, walking over. The trainer across the room gives him a dirty look that Blake doesn’t appear to notice.

“Man, I don’t tell him to do shit,” Adam says. He’s more or less mostly dressed for practice already; plenty of time to just sit in the stall and chill and note that Blake’s jersey is rucked up stupidly at the shoulder. He’s thinking about getting his phone out to snipe it for Snapchat, but it also seems like a lot of work. He stands up instead so he’ll look extra good when Maurice pokes his head in. “You tell him.” 

“Can you guys please stop calling me the fucking wife,” Brandon says. He doesn’t look up from the very, very careful mess he’s making out of the sock tape. 

“You guys practically fucking live together,” Blake says and noogies Adam like he doesn’t think Adam’s gonna retaliate. “And you already do all that housewife baking shit.” 

And that pulls Adam up short. Stops him hard, like skating into the boards while looking the other way. He pulls out a weak little laugh and dances back out of Blake’s grip. He’s a little breathless and he hates it and it’s hard to make himself look at Brandon but it would be weirder if he didn’t, probably, so he does. 

Brandon’s looking at him. His face is unreadable. 

“Shut up, Wheels,” he says brusquely and looks away and Adam is grown up enough to admit it hurts his feelings just a little. He swallows it anyway and reflects that actually, it’s probably really funny. About as funny as a hockey player baking cookies, anyway. 

“Yeah, Wheels, shut up,” he echoes and throws his arm around Brandon and at least Brandon lets him yank him close. He doesn’t fight it, he just stands kind of stiff. “You know I’m the wife, anyway.” 

“I know enough to know I don’t wanna know,” Blake says and chortles as he walks away because he thinks he’s funny. He leaves an acidic kind of silence in his wake. 

“You’d be a good husband,” Adam says when enough time has passed that he physically can’t keep his mouth shut, because apparently he has no fucking filter or self-preservation today. It’s just him and his dumbass mouth, running on automatic. Him, his stupid dumbass motherfucking mouth, and Brandon staring at him with that same strange, slightly pinched expression. 

“Yeah,” he says at last and he doesn’t sound mad or weirded out at least. “Yeah, I would.” 

Adam grins harder and shakes him with the arm around his shoulders one last time and then Maurice is barging in, barking instructions, and he can escape. He feels kind of bruised, like he’s just come off a five-minute shift. Like he’s just taken an elbow from fucking Bozak all over again, right in the chest. 

It is, almost definitely, whatever.

-/-

Scheifs complains almost as much as Brandon when Adam shows up at his door without texting ahead. Adam ignores him and starts unpacking his bro time supplies, which are mostly the Snuggie he found under his bed while looking for his electricity bill and a tub of chocolate chip cookies Brandon had declared inedible and Adam had rescued from being trashed because some charred bits never killed anyone.

Scheifs shuts up when he sees the tub of cookies at least. It’s a good thing Adam isn’t the type to take things personally because otherwise he’d start getting a complex. 

“Brandon made those?” Scheifs asks and Adam shrugs on the Snuggie. It gets caught on the bill of his snapback but he unhooks it after only a brief struggle. He suspects he looks good as hell; pink leopard print was practically designed with him in mind. He doesn’t remember buying it but he also has no idea who would have stowed it under his bed other than himself. A mystery for the ages. 

“I helped,” he says absently. He had, even. Brandon’s finally graduated to letting him hand him things as he bakes instead of just sitting across the counter where he, quote, ‘can’t fuck anything too important up.’ 

Burning the cookies had not been his fault, per se. 

“‘Splains why they suck,” Scheifs says, but he’s already eating a cookie and Adam elects not to start a fight while he’s wearing a Snuggie. It lowers his range of movement and Scheifs is a trickier target than Brandon. 

“Fuck off,” is all he says. “Put on some Price Is Right or whatever you fucking marrieds watch. Entertain me.” 

“That’s rich, coming from you,” Scheifs says, which, Adam does not even have the remotest idea what he means actually. But he’s walking over to the TV and Adam sets himself to the task of taking up as much of the couch as physically possible. 

“Your wife kick you out of the house?” Scheifs asks when he’s shoved Adam’s leg over enough to claim about half a couch cushion and positioned the tub of mildly distressed cookies on his stomach. “Woulda thought you’d be at Brandon’s tonight.” 

Ah. Adam understands what he’d meant before, now. 

“Me ‘n Brandon aren’t, like, actually married, you know,” he reminds Scheifs because sometimes Scheifs gets confused. “And I don’t live with him either. Also, I’m telling him you called him the wife. I’m the wife.” 

“Whatever,” Scheifs says comfortably. He’s apparently forgotten that Brandon isn’t above pulling hair, as all career little brothers are. “Man, I don’t know. Why else are you here.” 

“Buzzfeed says my love language is quality time,” Adam says primly. “So I had to show that I love you, _obviously_.” 

“You’re such a dick, Lowsy,” Scheifs complains. He doesn’t move from where Adam’s got about half a thigh occupying his entire lap though. He looks like he’s too well dosed on cookies to ever want to move again, actually. “Isn’t it Rusty’s job to put up with this shit?”

“I didn’t want you to get jealous,” Adam says and decides he’s going to examine what Mark said about Brandon approximately _never_. He knows Scheifs has at least some suspicion of his nasty little crush on Brandon, but he’s pretty sure Scheifs is also just jealous. Adam hangs out most at Brandon’s and therefore gets the best and most direct access to delicious handmade baked goods. It’s logic. “You know I love you best.” 

“Lucky me,” Scheifs grumbles. 

“So lucky,” Adam says sweetly and moves even more of his leg over to intrude on Scheifs’ personal space. 

“You should send me that Buzzfeed quiz,” Scheifs says after a minute. He’s looking at the TV pretty determinedly. Adam grins. 

“Sure, bud,” he says easily and gets out his phone to send him the link. “Check out the one that tells you your aura color, too. I’m orange.”

-/-

Brandon walks into the locker room with a familiar Tupperware and a furtive expression. Adam spots him right away, because he has shamefully fine-tuned Brandon-senses and a great nose for baked goods after the thorough training that’s been this year.

Brandon flinches when Adam bounds over and glares at him. Adam’s learned not to take it personally. 

“Bro,” he says, delighted. “Did you know it was Kovy’s birthday?” 

“Uh,” Brandon says. He looks down at the tub of what Adam is pretty sure are snickerdoodles and then back up at Adam. “Uhhh.” 

There is, Adam realizes with dawning glee, absolutely no way Brandon knew it’s Dmitri’s birthday. It is also, he knows, too late for Brandon to hide the cookies. Dmitri’s already on his way over. It is possible that he’s being handed an early birthday gift of his own by the universe, getting to watch this. 

“Oh!” Dmitri says. His broad face is ruddy and breaking into a massive, boisterous grin. “Rusty, you know is my birthday?” 

Adam watches panic rise and then fall in Brandon’s face for a little eternity. It’s captivating. It’s like watching a rabbit trying to decide whether to bite off its own leg to escape a trap only like, one million times less gruesome and one _billion_ times more hilarious. 

“Snickerdoodles,” is what Brandon ends up saying, shoves the tub into Dmitri’s hands, and crosses his arms. “You have to share. Fuck off.” 

Dmitri hugs him. Adam watches Brandon suffer through it with just _absolute_ delight and takes a snickerdoodle when Dmitri offers it to him. They’re warm and soft and taste like sweet cinnamon. Brandon hovers kind of behind his shoulder until Dmitri trots off with the tub to distribute baked goods and the danger of more hugging has passed. 

“ _Rusty_ ,” Adam says, gleeful. 

“Shut up,” Brandon groans. He’s got his head in his hands. “Shut up, shut up.” 

“You had no idea it was Kovy’s birthday,” Adam continues, ignoring him. “Like, no idea. You’re so fucking screwed, you’re gonna have to make everyone cookies for their birthdays. The trainers are gonna fucking hate you.” 

“This is the worst fucking day of my life,” Brandon says, head still in his hands. 

“He’s so happy!” Adam says and nudges Brandon until he looks up, then points at Dmitri. He’s trying to close the lid of the tub on Hellebuyck’s hand to stop him taking a third cookie. He’s still grinning. It’s adorable. 

“...Not the _worst_ ,” Brandon concedes after a moment.

-/-

“I know how to sift flour,” Adam grumbles. “Fuck off and stop hovering.”

“You know how but you won’t do it if I don’t watch you,” Brandon counters and leans back against the counter beside him. He’s got his arms crossed over his chest and he looks unbearably smug. “So get to it.” 

“It’s just a waste of time,” Adam complains but starts sifting anyway. The kitchen is warm and that’s why he feels a little flushed. “You can just dump everything in, it’s not like it makes that much of a difference.” 

“I’m making muffins,” Brandon says, cruelly and willfully discounting Adam’s assistance entirely. These are a _shared effort_ and Adam’s gonna be damn sure they’re advertised as such when Brandon gives them to Bryan for his birthday. “They gotta be fluffy, Adam. That’s how muffins fucking work.” 

“God,” Adam bitches. “I’m already sifting!” 

Brandon’s smiling when he glances over. He looks away again before he can do something stupid like dump a whole cup of flour all over himself on accident or spill canola oil all over the counter. He’s got a handle on himself, he swears. He’s got this. 

“Hurry up,” Brandon says. “Oven’s just finished preheating.”

-/-

He wakes up sometime too deep into the early morning to safely call the middle of the night but still dark enough he doesn’t want to call it morning either. Netflix is playing some stupid bullshit calming music, the _Are you still watching?_ warning flashing dimly on-screen. He blinks at it blearily for a moment or two and has no idea where he is.

He looks down. 

Brandon’s head is a heavy, warm weight on his chest and- 

Sometime in the night he must have laid down and Brandon must have shifted with him because somehow they’re still tangled together. 

There’s some kind of weird, big feeling in his chest. Like there’s more room in his ribs than there physically should be. Like he’s hauling in a breath his lungs will never be able to hold. Adam wonders for a dizzy second if he should be taking this to the trainers before Brandon shifts in his sleep and he realizes he’s being even more of a hockey dumbass than usual. 

He looks down at Brandon for a second longer, longer than is probably safe. His mouth is slack and his eyelashes tremble. He’s dreaming, probably. 

Adam squeezes his eyes shut. His neck is gonna be sore tomorrow from sleeping on the couch but it’s just a practice and he can get away with this. It’s nice, anyway.

-/-

There’s a tub of snickerdoodles in his stall. Brandon is nowhere near it, like he thinks maybe if he stands farther away no one will know it was him. Which, unless Trouba took up baking while no one was looking or something, everyone’s gonna fucking know it was him.

“Thanks,” he says with his mouth full and grins. Brandon makes a face. “You’ve been making a lot of snickerdoodles lately.” 

“Yeah, y’know,” Brandon says vaguely and finishes shrugging his jersey over his head. “Hurry up.”

-/-

Adam is losing his grip just a little.

It’s dark and the bar is warm and Brandon’s unbuttoned the first two buttons of his shirt, which is just such a cliché it makes Adam want to die about how much it’s doing it for him. Blowing right past all his carefully constructed bullshitting and hitting him right in the dick but, like… in a sexy way. 

He hates it. He takes another big gulp of his beer. It probably isn’t helping, but he’s committed to it at this point and it seems like quitting to cut himself off now. Even if he probably should have cut himself off two beers ago. 

Brandon glances at him. He looks down at his beer and lets himself sag into Scheifs. It reminds him a lot of high school. 

He’s thinking about that night, Brandon sleeping on his chest. He’s been thinking about it a lot, maybe. 

“Rusty,” Scheifs says and gets an elbow under him to heave him upright. “Take Lowsy home, he’s getting messy.” 

“Am not,” Adam mumbles, even though he probably is. “Dick.” 

Brandon sighs and starts climbing out of the booth. Adam punches Scheifs in the thigh, gently because he appreciates Scheifs caring, and follows. He’s kind of helpless not to, even if he discovers as he goes to stand that the room is spinning a little more than he thought it was. He can walk mostly in a straight line, at least. 

“You’re the worst,” Brandon says, letting Adam crowd up against his shoulder at coat check, because Brandon’s the kind of uptight responsible person that checks his coat even though it isn’t even a club. He’s smiling just a little tiny bit, just a little twitch at the corner of his mouth, and Adam can’t stop looking at it. It looks fond. 

“You’re the best,” he says, because he’s _stupid_ , but the coat check lady is already gesturing them forward and handing Brandon’s coat to Adam for some fucking reason. Brandon shoves him out of the way of the rest of the line and sighs through his nose, gesturing for Adam to hand it over. Adam looks down at it and then up at Brandon. 

“Here,” he says before he can really think better of it, he’s way too drunk and stupid with wanting Brandon, and he’s pretty sure he’s just imagining it but he thinks the coat in his hands might smell a little bit like flour and molasses. 

Brandon stares at him when he swings the coat around his shoulders. His smile is gone but he lets his arms be nudged into the sleeves. He just keeps staring and Adam’s a little dizzy, his vision unsteady at the corners. 

He’s so warm and if Adam just took another step forward they’d be pressed so close together, no air between them, Brandon’s breath against his shoulder… 

“Hey, husband,” Adam whispers and tries on a grin because his other option to kiss Brandon and he’s- fuck, he’s scared. He’s so scared. 

Brandon punches him right in the chest. 

It’s a _hard_ punch, a punch with anger behind it. It forces Adam to stagger back a step and Brandon’s standing there, his coat hanging loose around his shoulders. He’s pale. His face is so still it looks like it’s been carved from stone. 

“What the fuck,” Adam spits even though he’s not mad. He’s too shocked to be mad. Brandon’s face is something he doesn’t know how to read suddenly, and he hadn’t really known just how much he could read off of him until now. Until he can’t anymore. Until Brandon’s a stranger, staring at him like a blank wall. 

“Fuck off, Lowry,” Brandon says softly. 

Adam doesn’t know what to say. Adam lets him stalk away, lets him storm out of the bar, because he doesn’t know what to do and it doesn’t matter anyway. None of it matters. Nothing fucking matters anymore. He’d given himself away somehow and it’s stupid, it’s so fucking stupid. 

It’s so fucking stupid but all he can think about is how Brandon’s shoulder had been warm and firm under his hands and how he’d never even gotten to kiss him. He’d ruined everything and he hadn’t even gotten to kiss him. He doesn’t even know how he’d fucked up. He can’t see straight. 

Scheifs is pretty fucking drunk when Adam’s numb legs finally carry him inside. He hadn’t really made any conscious decision to, it had just seemed like- the best choice. Brandon had stormed out the door and he doesn’t want to see Brandon - Brandon doesn’t want to see him - and so he’d headed back inside. He’s kind of nauseous, acrid and sour at the back of his throat. 

Scheifs takes one look at how he’s swaying where he stands and he sighs and gets a hand on Adam’s elbow and Adam really loves him. He really, really does. 

“S’get you home, buddy,” he says, and Adam does not deserve friends like him.

-/-

He wakes up with one shoe on, the blankets twisted up around him. His mouth tastes like sour ass and there’s a headache sharp and evil at his temples. There’s a bottle of water on his bedside table and his phone is plugged in, and when he checks it he discovers it’s just after three in the morning.

He chugs the water and buries his face back in the pillow and forces himself back to sleep. 

His alarm gets him up a few hours later. At least his headache is a little better. 

He gets all the way to the arena without letting himself think about the tight, panicky feeling in his chest. Without thinking about the night before, or why he hasn’t checked the texts piling up in his notifications, why he’d gone home alone when lately-

Brandon’s standing in his stall, shrugging on his pads, and Adam’s world doesn’t collapse. It continues not to collapse as Brandon doesn’t look at him, as they troop onto the ice and Maurice bag-skates them a little just to be hurtful, doesn’t look at him once except to snap a crisp pass to him in the 3-on-3’s that hits his tape beautifully. 

He looks right away again. Adam loses puck possession. 

He rests his forehead against the wall of the shower for a minute, letting hot water sluice down his back and trying very, very hard not to think. There’s still a little bit of a headache lingering at the back of his eye sockets and a sticky, nauseous feeling in the pit of his stomach that he isn’t sure is entirely hangover. 

He gets himself upright and moving eventually. 

“Brandon’s mad at me,” he says and sits down on the bench next to Scheifs’ stall. The locker room’s pretty deserted. Brandon’s nowhere to be found. 

Scheifs looks at him, then back at the equipment he’s laying out carefully in his stall, and then sighs and sits down next to him. Their shoulders press together. Adam nudges him, gently, so he knows Adam appreciates him. 

“Thought he might be,” Scheifs says at last. “But, y’know. It’s Brandon. You’re best at reading him.” 

“He’s not that hard to read,” Adam protests weakly and tries laughing because he thinks there’s probably a funny joke in there somewhere, even if he’s having trouble thinking of what it could be. “Just grumpy.” 

Scheifs makes a face that says he probably doesn’t totally agree but lapses into silence. Across the room Blake is talking to one of the assistant coaches. Adam watches him and tries to read his lips because it’s better than letting the silence get to him. 

“Why’s he mad at you?” Scheifs asks. 

“Don't know,” Adam says, because he doesn't _really._ He doesn't know why Brandon had punched him and walked away and won't look at him now. He suspects- but. He doesn't know. 

Scheifs lets him sit there and think for another while. Blake's gesturing broadly across the locker room. Adam's pretty sure he's talking about the power play. 

“I wanted to kiss him,” he says, admits, finally. “I, you know, like him. Or whatever.” 

Scheifs digests that for a while. 

“But you didn’t kiss him,” he clarifies. Adam shakes his head and Scheifs thinks for a little while longer. 

“Do you think he realized,” Adam says at last, when he's reached the limit of the silence he can tolerate. “That I, y'know… like him? And that's why he's angry?” 

“I don't think he knows,” Scheifs says gently. “S’probably not why he’s mad. You need to talk to him. I'm serious.”

“But that’s hard,” Adam whines. “Talking is hard!” 

He knows he has to. Obviously, he has to. He probably even wants to, underneath all the panic and the stupefying headache. But when he tries to think of what he could possibly say all he can think about is the way Brandon’s face had gone cold and remote and absolutely unreadable in the dim light of the bar. 

Scheifs slaps him on the shoulder. He’s making a sympathetic expression. 

“Man up, kid,” he says, which is just ridiculous enough to nearly make Adam laugh. They’re the same fucking age. Adam is _taller_ than him. “You know him better than anyone, you’ll figure it out.”

-/-

Adam goes home because he doesn’t really know what else to do or where else to go. He can’t stop thinking about what Scheifs had said, how Adam knows Brandon better than anyone else. It’s probably true. Definitely true, about the team.

He’s wandered into his kitchen. 

The light’s off but there’s enough weak winter sunlight coming through the living room windows that he can kind of see everything. He hasn’t really cooked more than a quick breakfast in here in ages, maybe months. He’s over at Brandon’s too much, or out with the team, or on the road. It feels kind of impersonal suddenly. Unfriendly. 

He sucks in a breath and squares his shoulders. He has a baking sheet and a mixing bowl somewhere. He can go buy some flour. He can do this.

-/-

The gingerbread cookies come out lumpy and probably not all that great compared to anything Brandon’s ever made. Adam didn’t have a cookie cutter and so they’re just slightly misshapen circles, little smiley faces pressed into them with a chopstick he’d found in the silverware drawer. They taste fine, though. Good, even. He’d learned a lot from leaning over Brandon’s shoulder.

He shifts the decorative platter he’d found on the top shelf of the cabinet above the stove to one hand and knocks on the door. 

It takes a little eternity for Brandon’s footsteps to come to the door. It takes even longer for him to open it, an excruciatingly long series of moments where Adam is incredibly aware of every part of his body and how awkwardly he’s standing and how he doesn’t know what his face should be doing. Where he’s aware that if he wanted to Brandon could just walk away again and there’s nothing Adam could really do about it. 

The lock clicks and the door swings open and Brandon is looking at him. 

He lifts the plate so Brandon can see it better. Brandon looks down at it for a long time, and then back up at Adam. His expression is hard to parse but he doesn’t look happy. He looks- miserable. He looks miserable. 

“Adam,” he says. 

It’s not a promising tone. 

“I made you cookies,” Adam says. He can’t think of what else to say. He’s not thinking clearly, or maybe even at all. He feels stupid and embarrassed and something else, aching in his chest. 

Brandon sighs. 

“You did,” he acknowledges quietly.

“I’m sorry,” Adam says immediately. “I hate not talking to you. I’m really- I’m sorry.” 

Brandon takes a cookie. Adam watches him take a bite and reflects that this is probably, like, the most emotionally loaded cookie moment of all time. He’d put money on it. 

“I’ve made better,” Brandon says at last. He’s smiling thinly. It’s entirely insincere but it’s something. It’s something more than absolute blankness. 

“I know,” Adam says, because, like, duh. “Can we, uh… can we talk?” 

“Yeah, I guess,” Brandon says after a moment and gestures back into his apartment. “C’mon in.” 

Adam leaves his plate of stupid, ugly cookies on the counter. It’s quiet, in Brandon’s apartment. It doesn’t smell like he’d made anything, not in the past day or two. It’s weird to be so tense walking in here. It’s weird not to smell flour and vanilla and sugar. It’s all just… _weird_. 

Brandon stops in the middle of the hallway and just- looks at him. Adam looks back and doesn’t know what to say at all. 

“I’m sorry,” he tries. 

Brandon looks down at the cookie in his hand. It’s got a big crescent bite out of it. He sets it down on the countertop. 

“You don’t even know what you’re sorry for,” he says. 

“You could, like, tell me,” Adam says desperately. He’s about to crawl out of his fucking skin. He _hates_ this, he hates having this conversation, and he hates more than that how Brandon’s mouth is pinched and his eyes are tight at the corners like he’s trying to skate through an injury again. Like he’s actually in pain. 

“What do you want, Adam?” Brandon asks. His arms are crossed across his chest and his shoulders are up high around his ears. He’s glaring, but he looks more defeated than angry. “What do you even want from me.” 

“I want,” Adam says, stupid and aching in his chest and breathless like he’s been shorthand-shifted for an entire period. He can’t drag in enough O2. Brandon’s just standing there and looking at him like his gaze doesn’t carry nearly unbearable weight. And, fuck, whatever. “I kind of want to just, have you talk to me again. I don’t know what I did.” 

It’s the truth and a little less than the truth. He wants a lot more than that. More than he really knows how to talk about yet. It doesn’t seem to matter much, under the weight of Brandon’s gaze. 

“I was mad because I wanted it to be real,” Brandon says crisply and. 

And, what the fuck? 

“Real?” Adam manages nonsensically, which is pretty admirable considering he doesn’t have a single fucking thought in his head. 

Brandon isn’t looking at him. He’s glaring defiantly at the air about a foot to his right. 

“I wanted it to be real,” he repeats. “I wanted you to want me like that for real. And it fucking sucked that you didn’t but kept making jokes about it. So that’s why I was mad.” 

Adam is, maybe, gaping. 

“You wanted it to be real?” he asks when he’s finally managed to mobilize enough of his brain to coordinate his lungs and mouth into something like cooperation and put some coherent English together. It takes a while. There’s a haze of white noise in his head slowing him down like he’s thinking through molasses or, or some other stupid fucking metaphor. 

Brandon winces. His gaze skitters over to Adam and away again. He looks distinctly trapped. 

“Yeah,” he says and visibly steels himself. “I know you didn’t know, but it still sucked. And now you know. So.” 

“It was real,” Adam says. 

“That’s not fucking funny,” Brandon snaps back immediately. 

Adam really can’t stop himself coming closer, hands up palm-out, like he’s approaching a skittish animal or something. Brandon looks distinctly skittish, falling back a step before he lets Adam get any closer. He’s staring at Adam and it’s maybe the first time he’s ever seen Brandon look that unsure of himself, without a veneer of bad-tempered bravado. 

“I’m serious,” Adam says breathlessly. The white noise is not getting any better; it is, in fact, getting louder in his ears. It isn’t so bad. He thinks he’s probably grinning like an absolute fool. “Brandon, I’m so fucking serious. It was real. It’s real.” 

“Holy shit,” Brandon says and otherwise doesn’t move at all. 

“I made you apology cookies,” Adam reminds him inanely, because he had. He’d made lumpy, deformed gingerbread cookies just to tell Brandon sorry. And Brandon wants him, has wanted him, and maybe Adam’s kind of a dumbass usually but it seems like today is turning out to be another day where it’s great to be Adam Lowry. 

“Holy shit,” Brandon says and grabs him by the hair and maybe an ear and hauls him down to kiss him. There’s a moment of teeth clicking, Brandon’s mouth just a little left of center, but then Adam gets a hand in Brandon’s hair and it smooths out and, yes. _Yeah_ , hell yes. 

“You’re gonna eat all of my apology cookies,” Adam says when Brandon finally lets him pull back enough to breathe, and then kisses him again, quick and warm. There’s that weird expansive feeling in his chest again, broad and heavy and almost unbearably light all at once. 

“The fuck I will,” Brandon says and Adam kisses him again, right on the broad, stupid smile.

-/-

“Go try to catch the bouquet,” Adam urges and shoves at Brandon's shoulder. Brandon doesn't even look up from the offended and unimpressed eye contact he's been locked into with the wedding cake all night. He’d only really looked away to look disapprovingly at Adam when he’d happily eaten his own piece, and even then only for a minute before he’d been right back at trying to outstare a pastry.

“You go catch it,” he says. 

“No way I could,” Adam counters. “Unfair height advantage.” 

“Are you calling me short?” Brandon says and looks up at him at last. He looks more amused than offended, and also warm and flushed and drunk. Adam resolves he is _not_ going to drag Brandon back to the hotel room early just to see how pink he can get him. No matter how compelling of an argument his dick makes. 

“Well, y'know,” he says instead and squeezes Brandon's hand under the table. “If the stiletto heel fits.”

Brandon does not retaliate how Adam was expecting. He raises both eyebrows and looks at Adam, considering, in a way that is very slightly terrifying. 

“Hmm,” is all Brandon says. 

“What,” Adam demands, “what? What's that expression about!” 

“Don't worry about it,” Brandon says. He looks back at the cake. 

Adam is kind of worrying about it. 

“Jesus,” Jacob says and throws himself down into the chair next to Adam. He smells like he’s been rolling in cocktails and cake icing. He _looks_ like he’s been rolling in cocktails and cake icing. “Fuck, dude, I love weddings. Have you tried the margaritas? Goddamn.” 

“Brandon’s trying to beef with the wedding cake,” Adam says idly. He hasn’t had a margarita yet but suddenly he kind of really wants one. 

“The wedding cake is _fine_ ,” Brandon grumbles unconvincingly and starts hauling himself unsteadily to his feet. “Fuck both of you. I’m getting a margarita.” 

“One for me?” Adam asks hopefully. Brandon rolls his eyes. 

“Whatever,” he says. His hand lands on the back of Adam’s neck for just a second as he walks away. Adam’s aware he’s grinning like a fool but, like, it’s a wedding. He can be shamelessly into his boyfriend if he wants to be. 

“So when’s the wedding date?” Jacob asks. 

“I’m working on it,” Adam says confidently.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] All that and a baking sheet too](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18214133) by [Annapods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annapods/pseuds/Annapods)




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